Wall Street cash bonuses for 2012 are expected to climb 8% from a year earlier, boosted in part by the payment this year of compensation deferred from prior years, according to a report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

New York securities firms will pay employees $20 billion in cash bonuses, up from $18.5 billion for 2011…

The average cash bonus rose 9% to roughly $121,900. The figure increased more than the total cash bonus pool because it was shared among fewer workers than the prior year, the report said.

Employment totaled 169,700 jobs as of December 2012, 1,000 fewer jobs than in December 2011, as the securities industry shrank again in response to fearful markets and muted client activity.

As Brett Philbin writes, the bonuses last year were 42% lower than the 2006 amount, while there are also considerably fewer workers compared to pre-crisis levels:

The report estimated that Wall Street lost 28,300 job from November 2007 to January 2010, but has added only 8,500 so far during the recovery from the global financial crisis.

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